CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Chicago police said an officer shot and killed a man, who was allegedly holding a knife, over the weekend while responding to a domestic disturbance in Englewood. Now his mother is asking questions.
Chicago police responded Sunday to the 6500 block of South Harvard Avenue at about 10:55 a.m. to a fight between 28-year-old Turell Brown and his girlfriend. Police found Brown armed with a knife, and an officer shot him. Brown was later pronounced dead.
Brown’s mother, Angela Wade-Brown, told CBS 2 the girlfriend told her Brown would not drop the knife he was holding and police ended up shooting and killing him.
“They asked him to put the knife down and I guess he didn’t, so then she says they shot him,” Wade-Brown said.
She added that this was not the first time her son and his girlfriend argued or that police were called to get involved.
“I told him if they couldn’t get along, they shouldn’t be there. But they were still being back together,” she said. “But I felt like even though they might have had their arguments or whatever, it wasn’t a cause for him to lose his life. They didn’t have to shoot to kill him. They could have shot him in the arm and for him to drop the weapon. They could have shot him in the leg. But they shot and they killed him. And I feel like he didn’t have to lose his life because of that.”
Jennifer Fulton and other neighbors told the Sun-Times the area is generally peaceful, but there have been problems at that building, including a SWAT response to a domestic disturbance two years ago.
Fulton and another neighbor, Eddie Clemons, said police responded to the building in August 2019 and streets were closed for blocks. A man with a knife told officers through a window he would not come out. A SWAT team negotiated with him for several hours and he was taken into custody and brought to a hospital for an evaluation, police said.
No one was hurt, but the incident remained fresh on the minds of neighbors. “They always have problems,” Fulton said. “It needs to be shut down…It’s chaos.”
Still, Clemons said news of the police shooting was shocking. “It’s right up the street that my kids go to. This is a school right here,” he said, pointing to the Academy of St. Benedict just steps from the apartment building.
According to the Sun-Times, a neighbor on the block complained to Ald. Jeanette Taylor about the building, Fulton said. Taylor declined to comment Sunday, responding to a voicemail message with a text saying she had the flu.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating the shooting. The officer who fired the shot has been placed on desk duty for 30 days as standard practice.
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(WBBM Newsradio and the Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this copy.)